Letters to the editor 2/25

Education is crucial in violence fight

I wish to extend many thanks to our local law enforcement in their continued effort to reduce local crime, including domestic violence, ("Serious crimes in City of Poughkeepsie down in 2012," Feb. 13). In addition, to our state in its effort to provide specialized training, which is vital to assessment of dangerous environments and people. This training is crucial as victims may not be resilient enough to reach out for assistance for a multitude of reasons.

The U.S. identifies injury and violence as national objectives for the improvement in health of all Americans, with goals designed to establish equity, reduce disparity, and create social and physical environments that promote health and well-being. Healthy People 2020 (www.healthypeople2020.gov) reports that each year approximately 4.8 million women experience intimate partner-related assaults and rapes while 2.9 million men experience intimate partner-related physical assaults. The staggering statistic that our community has experienced a 93.3 percent increase in 2012 in these events should invoke horror in each of us. Our law enforcement cannot solve this issue alone.

As a women's health provider, I remind each of my colleagues that we must offer domestic violence screening to each of our patients. A fatal flaw in health care is the assumption that domestic violence is limited to lower-income or lesser-educated families. The data show that domestic violence does not discriminate; impervious to economic, racial, or gender barriers. Education remains a key component to empowering victims.

Stacey Lamar

Poughkeepsie

Schools need literary standards

I heard some disturbing news. By 2014, school curricula will cut a good deal of literature in favor of more nonfiction reading, such as manuals dealing with recommended levels of insulation and invasive plant species. These "informational texts" will supposedly help students gear their writing toward the business world, which will help them succeed in college and future careers. Sounds logical, right? To me, it sounds stifling.

Studies show American students to be behind other countries in certain subjects - namely math and science. However, taking away the literary standards that have been the cornerstones of American education is not the answer. Students need more than math and science skills. They need to become acquainted with their culture and learn how to stretch the limits of their creativity and imagination. They need to be able to develop abstract thoughts, to think outside the box. Reading government manuals will not help them do this. Such sterile text will only prepare them for life within the four walls of an office building, creating drones to take their place as cogs in a bureaucratic wheel. How much poorer would the world be without the works of those writers who open minds to creativity and imagination?

Preparing students for the world beyond academia means exposing them to a multitude of ideas and ideals. We are doing a grave disservice to future generations who will grow up to be colorless and unimaginative. How will this prepare them for success?

Karen Garrison

Pleasant Valley

Abortion ruins women's lives

Abortion doesn't just torture and murder an innocent baby. Numerous women who have had one or more abortions tell us they have been wracked with guilt for their entire lives. Many say the experience was so traumatic and destructive, they became alcoholics and drug addicts to deal with the mental torment.

In despair, they went to an abortion clinic for help. Instead of being told of the physical, moral and psychological consequences of aborting a child; all this was concealed from them. They were told there would be no consequences. How can a health-care provider be so callous?

How can a doctor or nurse carry the arms and legs of a tortured baby out of the operating room; and be willing to perform this procedure on another woman? How can they conceal the intense pain and suffering they inflict on the baby from its mother?

Twenty first-grade children were murdered with a gun in Newtown, Conn. The whole country is upset. Why aren't we even more upset over the 50 million children who were murdered by doctors with a scalpel and scissors, since the Roe v. Wade decision in 1973?

Robert E. O'Connor

Hopewell Junction

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Letters to the editor 2/25

I wish to extend many thanks to our local law enforcement in their continued effort to reduce local crime, including domestic violence, ('Serious crimes in City of Poughkeepsie down in 2012,' Feb.